Bishop asked Bach about Microsoft’s “Courier” device and Bach replied, “Well, Courier — Courier, first of all, wasn’t a device. The project and the incubation and the exploration we did on Courier I view as super important. The “device” people saw in the video isn’t going to ship, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t learn a bunch and innovate a bunch in the process. And I’m sure a bunch of that innovation will show up in Microsoft products, absolutely confident of it.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As per Bach’s last sentence: 20 years of bullshitting is obviously tough to stop immediately, if ever. As for the rest, yes, sometimes it’s tough always being right, but, hey, somebody has to do it:
“It’s not a ‘booklet,’ it’s a ‘vaporlet.’ So, why is this ‘astounding’ CG imagery being emitted right now? Are Microsoft worried that a real device is coming soon from another company?” – MacDailyNews Take, September 23, 2009, the day “Courier” supposedly was “leaked” by Gizmodo.
We find it immensely amusing that Microsoft still thinks they have the power to freeze markets. Up in Redmond, they’re delusional beyond repair.
Yes, hard to stop be lying ass dogs.
Proof of why you can trust everything Microsoft says always
Microsoft is LAUGHABLE at best right about now.
Yes, Microsoft have been ‘innovating’ Apple products for years, and hopefully with the ‘innovative’ Zune they learned to leave tablets alone…
Dear me, it wasn’t even a mockup. It was just a concept video like the Knowledge Navigator.
Where are the MS Fanboys creaming about this POS from Microsoft now? Where are you? Hellooooooo? Anyone one there? LOL
Let us take pity on poor, pitiful Microsoft.
They simply do not know better.
What makes this story priceless is to read the comments on the original Gizmodo article. All these fools talking about how they can’t wait a second with out one. Now they will wait a lifetime.
smoke
&
mirrors
circus
act
bring on the clowns….
The style difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple talks about a product or service when it either is now available or has to be cleared by the FCC. Microsoft does vapor trial balloons about possible tech-turds pilled on decades old rotting foundations.
Anyone ever seen that Big Ass Table in the real world yet?
Read the full story. Those people are delusional. Their time has come and gone. Great products coming??? What a bunch of preconceived nonsense he is spewing. Hopefully once he stops drinking that MS kool aid he will realize what he us saying
Ballmer will drive these programs into the ground. Thank God.
Yes and I remember all the PCbeenies on the forums going on about how wonderful this vapourware was, how its worth waiting a few months after iPad and buy it, how it is so superior in almost every respect, how its what Apple would love to have produced blah, blah, blah. Its amazing just how good a product is when it never has to se the light of day. You can see why Ballmer is Ballmer when he has been brought up on delusional devotees such as these, what he can’t deal with however is how few of them there are still to delude, so instead he simply sacks the scapegoats he blames for it.
Gizmodo, You and your website are a laughingstock today.
Giz:
Courier is a real device, and we’ve heard that it’s in the “late prototype” stage of development. It’s not a tablet, it’s a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They’re connected by a hinge blah blah…
Bach: Well, Courier — Courier, first of all, wasn’t a device. The project and the incubation and the exploration we did on Courier I view as super important. The “device” people saw in the video isn’t going to ship, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t learn a bunch and innovate a bunch in the process blah blah…
Send jeers and lulz to the assclowns of Gizmodo at tips@gizmodo.com
To be fair, there HAS been some interesting stuff coming out of Microsoft’s R&D;lately, some of which has been featured at the TED conferences: Seadragon/Photosynth, worldwide telescope, augmented-reality maps, and Pivot (based on Seadragon tech).
I’m no fans of Redmond, but it’s not like they’re coming up with nothing. Their scientists are first-rate…it’s just that what they ship doesn’t measure up to the brains on the payroll.
Sort of like the U.S. auto industry. Lots of great designers and engineers, and lackluster products coming out the door.
MDN hit the nail on the head. Microsoft thinks they can still scare customers in to not buying the competitor’s products by announcing vaporware. That time has passed. Companies like Apple have proven themselves the leaders in both innovation and in actually delivering a product. As long as monkey-boy leads MS, I don’t know if this will change.
It sucks!!! You suck!!! I’m cool and you’re a pathetic old nerd!!!
Noogies! Noogies for the nerd!!! — SJ to BG
@WriterGuy
That’s one of the fairest, most sensible comments I’ve heard about MS, ever.
Well done!
PS and I’m a Mac Fanatic from waaay back
I can’t figure it. This BS is so typical MS; something Apple has not ever done (to my recollection, at least). The outright deception and manipulative behavior permeates EVERYTHING they do. Obviously, MS is not to be trusted in any way, shape, or form. Ask 3COM, ask the original developer of Internet Explorer. My parents taught me to avoid people I couldn’t trust.
Yet every major corporation in this country trusts their information and computer security to MS despite decades of proof to the contrary. Our Defense Department is so in bed with MS, it will take decades to counteract their penetration. (And I mean that figuratively, as well as the most graphic literal interpretation you can come up with.)
Why is this so? Can MDN dredge up the cognitive dissonance and Stockholm Syndrome article from so long ago?
Had a lot of fun reading some of the comments on MDN in their 9/23/09 article.
Lot’s of astroturf posters talking about how Apple will have to go back to the drawing board and how innovative MS is. (And of course any detractor pointing out the obvious is just a fan boy)
“but that doesn’t mean we didn’t learn a bunch and innovate a bunch in the process. And I’m sure a bunch…”
All Microsoft can make is a “bunch” of vaporware lately.
@Anonymous©: “Dear me, it wasn’t even a mockup. It was just a concept video like the Knowledge Navigator.”
“The Knowledge Navigator concept piece by Apple Computer (1987)” – http://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/knowledge-navigator.html
“The Knowledge Navigator is a concept described by former Apple Computer CEO John Sculley in his 1987 book, Odyssey. It describes a device that can access a large networked database of hypertext information, and use software agents to assist searching for information.” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Navigator
“In 1987 Apple Computer produced a concept video for a hypothetical product called the Knowledge Navigator.” – http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2007/04/apples-knowledge-navigator-1987.html
Here are just three quotes with their associated links Mr. Anonymous© and you know what they all have in common and from the links I previewed but didn’t list… They have in common the fact that the device was a CONCEPT device and was worded as such.
“It feels like the whole world is holding its breath for the Apple tablet. But maybe we’ve all been dreaming about the wrong device. This is Courier, Microsoft’s astonishing take on the tablet. Courier is a real device, and we’ve heard that it’s in the “late prototype” stage of development. It’s not a tablet, it’s a booklet.” – http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet
“We’ve been dying to know more about Microsoft’s Courier tablet / e-book device ever since we first caught wind of it last September, and while our entreaties to Mr. Ballmer went unanswered, we just learned some very interesting information from an extremely trusted source. We’re told Courier will function as a “digital journal,” and it’s designed to be seriously portable: it’s under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn’t much bigger than a 5×7 photo when closed.” – http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digital-journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de/
Courier “will”, Courier “is”… to me, sounds pretty definitive! Why not use more accurate verbiage like the Courier ‘concept’ instead of “will” and “late proto-type stage”. If you are sure you are not putting a device out for public consumption, then maybe you shouldn’t lead the rest on, as if you are. Maybe that is why MS CEO Ballmer debuted HP’s Slate because when it came to the Courier, his response would have been… ‘I’ve got nothing’.
At least Apple was honest in the description Mr. Anonymous©.
Two things to also note: In the concept video, even back in 1987, first, Apple was looking to touchscreen device and second, and must be for a future iPad device I am sure, voice recognition as a form of personal navigation, is surely on it’s way if it is in Apple’s R&D;labs just won’t be announced until an actual working model is produced.
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“But we learned a lot from it.”
I guess that’s all that matters. The fact that your learning exercise was “leaked” – repeatedly – means that everyone else got to learn along with you, even your competitors.
Either your R&D;security is a joke, or it was vapor. Which was it, Robbie?
My take:
http://themacadvocate.com/2010/04/29/operation-vaporwatchs-first-victim-announced/
I am confused – did Microsoft ever announce the Courier as a product, or did Gizmodo simply find out about it and then speculated that it was going to be a real product that was going to ship soon?
I think one of the more interesting bits of M$FT “innovation” is in the FUD they present when faced with an imminent ground-breaking product announcement from Apple. The “product” they counter with has many features the Apple product ought to have – but won’t have, not in version 1. Admittedly, it may also have features the Apple product doesn’t, shouldn’t, and won’t have – because they are simply bad ideas, often holding on to a useless past.
We really ought to thank M$FT for this particular FUD. Without it, Apple would have run out of iPads early on and everyone would have had to wait extra long to get one. Instead, the shops had enough to get through the weekend and more.
Bach did not “confirm” that the Courier was vaporware. It’s true that was the only reasonable understanding of what he said, but it wasn’t quite what he said. I’m sure he is under contract to M$FT, one that prohibits him from saying such things. Which is why he skirted around “not saying” it.
@ Jersey_Trader,
“Anyone ever seen that Big Ass Table in the real world yet?”
I saw one being rolled down the sidewalk on one of those wheeled platforms that moving companies use. The guy pushing it was also dragging a strung out extension cord. He said it was the Big Ass Table Portable Windows 7 Edition.
I backed away carefully.
Poor, pitiful Gizmodo.
Suckers.
I have just suffered through reading the entire interview.
What a complete moron! Any other organization would have fired his ass 22 years ago. Keep up the good work, M$oft!
I forgot about the question of the “Big Ass Table”. Isn’t that the device the news junkies have been using to track breaking stories for us? Often wall-mounted, but I’ve seen them as a table. Saw lots of them the last election, sorting through which states were red or blue, which HAD been which, which mattered most … then moving on to the data-base info of how voters broke out between male and female, younger older and in between, sedan drivers vs coupe … OK, not that. What convinced me was the occasional crash … carried live. Are you telling me I watch too much TV? Or that these Blue-Screen incidents just looked like Windows? Or, what? Maybe someone could query AC-360 for more info?
“I am sure, voice recognition as a form of personal navigation, is surely on it’s way…”
Why do you think Apple bought Siri? This is precisely what we will see from Apple, though not before it actually goes on sale!
Wow, they make shitty real products, now the also make shitty vapor-wear? must be a rounding error!
And this is a surprise how?
Now all the M$ fangrlz will have to go back to beating off over Miss May.
@nownow, were you being sarcastic, because you made my point.
Dang, reading that full interview is painful. Thank God we Apple fanboies don’t have to pretend to admire an exec who obviously aspires to Pointy-Haired-Boss-style communication. Barfola.
That sounds like a very different product development approach than Apple.
The core of Apple’s approach is: we want a device to do X. Sometimes, that X implies a form factor, eg iPod. It is then built up from there with the focus on delivering on a well realized premise. Understanding the market for the device is required to form the premise, the function and form of the device.
I don’t know much about MS prod devel, but it seems that if management kills it at the end because they did not know the market for it at the beginning. Why even start the project in the first place? To innovate? We can all agree that innovation is good. We also know that some discoveries are sometimes useful later in ways that could not have been predicted. But having lab simply “innovating” it is not a recipe for making a coherent product. Even when kick ass products emerge, lack of understanding of the market means that the people that should be in love with the device do not even know that it exists, let alone the features (see Sony).
More evidence that the problem with Microsoft is their leadership. They seem to actually believe that they are still the center of the tech world. They throw around words like “incubate” and “innovate” as if that’s what they really do. They seem to believe their press releases, when most press releases are just a collection of the currently popular buzz words, meant for public and press consumption. As the MDN Take says, they are “delusional beyond repair.”
So if Microsoft is going to become more relevant again, they need to get rid of ALL their current leaders, including the one at the top. The new leadership needs act like Microsoft is the “underdog” with something to prove, and view Microsoft realistically, as the rest of the world views it.
Microsoft needs to stop wasting shareholder money on unfocused “incubation,” and existing products that will go nowhere, such as Zune, Kin, and the “big-ass table.” They need to rethink their Windows “mobile” strategy, so that what they eventually offer is more than just a glorified PDA-class OS. They need to refocus on what brings in most of the revenue, Windows and Office, and make them into products that people actually want to use, not just products people have to use by default.
But they can’t do that with the current leadership in place, because the current leadership has too much “baggage” and cannot make the necessary decisions.
@ Jersey_Trader,
“Anyone ever seen that Big Ass Table in the real world yet?”
Yup – they had two in the lobby-lounge of the Sheraton I stayed at in Chicago. I tried one of them (after the little kids quit trying to play checkers on it). The interface was horrible and kludgy. The map feature barely worked, and I consistently had to use two hands to get it to read my gesture correctly. Purely a POS.
“Ex-Microsoftie Robbie Bach confirms ‘Courier’ was vaporware”
Only Courier???
Come on!!
They “learned a bunch”……about making animations.
It really goes to show that if you want to try to stifle innovation, create FUD to obfuscate the obvious – That you have nothing to offer of any substance, and that by turning heads you slow down the innovator that is not yourself, by casting doubt into the minds of customers.
Case in point, I held off buying an iPad because I wanted to see the Courier and The Slate. The Courier was ridiculously different and I thought a possible worthy competitor, given its different form factor. Now I find out that the “originality” was pure nonsense. There was no originality. THERE WAS NO PRODUCT! I will not make the same mistake again. I will not wait for Google’s product, because in my opinion if any company had an IPAD Killer sitting in R&D;, they would have released it already and not given Apple a 2 million head count head start, knowing fully well that iPad v2.0 will have twice as many apps and already be imprinted in the minds of the masses.
I’ll stay with the one great innovator of the 21st century.
A question to ask is why is this Courier story being recycled now? I think the answer is a four letter word: SIRI